Leaves Of Grass

Whitman wrote this poem during the times of the civil war. Racism was very common, and yet he shows respect and admiration towards the "negro". His ideas are very controversial and liberal in the sense that he respects everyone, and sees them as equal. In this poem, he creates a visual image at first, which he then transforms into an idea or concept. In this case equality.

The negro appears to be confident and strong. His dominion over the beasts suggests that he also has power over others, and yet has no reason to abuse it. He also appears to be interesting and attractive, and he is probably referring to the whole race.

Change In Our Lifes

“The smoke of my own breath; echoes, ripples buzz´d, love root….” (2) As I read poem number two I thought of how life can be different for everyone else. Whitman expresses a way of life. This poem is very similar to books we read in 9th grade. Considering the time the book was written, a time when people started reasoning or thinking on revolution people as Ralph Waldo Emerson on self reliance. I like the way he approaches the reader, he has a new and renovating idea of a life style.

All that Walt Whitman is asking from us is to awaken. Whitman is encouraging us to appreciate everything that we experience in our lives. Every little thing that we take for granted is much more complex and beautiful than what most of us see of it. In this case, he starts by mentioning individual characteristics of the human bodies, but progresses into a broader concept of life in general.

By using vivid imagery and metaphors, Whitman allows us to see his perspective and although I do believe that we should stop for some moments to admire the world in which we live in, it becomes more difficult every day. Not to mention the technology that surrounds us, but also that our generation has accustomed to craving things at an incredible pace, and we are never satisfied. In these days, few people would simply ignore, and discredit the wonders that surround us.

Something funny I noticed was that Whitman made an involuntary gesture that looks like a winking face. When he said "(there are millions of suns left;)" Considering the time period, I believe it to be chance, but I do have to say that it looks intentional and suits the idea well.

Who Defines Our Style?

One of the best things in the world is listening to a good speaker. Now there is always a good speaker on your life, for instance my Grandfather is someone who I love to hear speak, especially when he is talking about the past. His voice is low but sweet, the tone just invites you in, and when you listen to it, you would probably enjoy hearing it forever. It is like having a good book but instead of you reading it, he reads it for you. It may be the way he narrates the story he speaks a though he were there watching the person make decisions, I don't know if I have the words to describe it, but he always starts with the word "cuando". The simple soul is a book that I would love to hear my Grandfather read out loud. The book uses these words that I don't normally hear, and the tone that it has reminds me of the nights I used to sit at my beach house with my Grandfather at living room discussing politics with his friends. Some of the books sentences even start with his words, "When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat. There was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are sometimes afflicted with."(Chapter IV). When I was little I used to picture myself narrating just like him, and I have tried but I have trouble with words, they are so many and mean so many things that I don't know how to use them and if I do, I can't help wondering if I used them correctly. One of the worst things is the mal practice of words, sometimes I am afraid to write because I don't know what I am doing. Writing is something scary to me, the idea of someone judging you or the thousand ways to fix a paragraph, how can I, have it the right way. I have heard that practice makes perfect but I practice, I have journal and I still can't get the good grades in the class or have the effect on people like Gustave Flaubert or my Grandfather do. Their style and choice of words is something that I wish I would get to one day, they make the things that are very common and give them life. In my family where writing is something you have to relief emotions, award winning writing and newspaper columnists, like my Great aunt, who's writing got her a trip to Europe and some chocolates. Her use of words is breathtaking. Style is something unique to every person but I am afraid is don't have one yet, but I enjoy the different types I get to read every day.

Carta a dios:

Te llevaste a mi niño, nuestro niño, el hijo de mi marido y mío, el hermano de su hermana, el amigo de sus amigos, el compañero de su amiga, el cuñado, el nieto, el tío, el sobrino.

El profesor, el bailarín, el teatrero, el escritor, el dibujante...

Te hacía falta quién te llenara el cielo de cuadros coloridos, quién te escribiera cuentos y te los leyera, quién bailara y actuara para ti.

Quién te divirtiera con su ingenio, con su risa.

Quién te ordenara y decorara el cielo, quién hiciera las fiestas de bienvenida para todos
los nuevos inquilinos.

Quién se encargara de los libros, las velas, la música, los postres, y de mover la luna.
Quién diseñara lo que aún no se había inventado.

Quién llenara ese vacío de santa monotonía, y acaso de falta de novedad que a lo mejor respira por allá.

Jorge llegó con Pafi, su osito de felpa, a barrer las nubes y a poner las estrellas en su sitio.

A sacudir la lluvia, a formar copos de nieve.

Y a hacer que el sol brillara más claro por su propia transparencia.

Jorge llegó con su verdad, según tu voluntad. A conversar contigo.

A oírte...y a que lo oyeras.

Una vez él había escrito una 'Oración a Diosesito', tú debes conocerla...

Él te llamaba así, 'Diosesito', y escribió en su diario: "Yo sabía que tenía que darle el regalo de mis danzas a la gente y a Diosesito".

He oído que mucha gente te da las gracias a ti, Dios, por una cosa, otra y la de más allá.

Pero esta vez toca que Tú, Dios, me las des a mí o nuestra cuenta sigue pendiente.
Formal saludo.

Mariluz Uribe de Holguín.

A Complex Style In Simple Words.

As I read the chapters, I thought of how the title is so contradicting to the style of the book. A Simple Soul, the book is not even near simple, the over descriptions of a house a garden are just so complex and so complete, that the name of the book is pure irony. “The new moon illumined part of the sky and a mist hovered like a veil over the sinuosities of the river. Oxen, lying in the pastures, gazed mildly at the passing persons. (Chapter II).” The sentences are about the same length. The imagery is very notable. I also enjoyed the way words, foreshadowed some events in chapter III Virginia, the little girl is very ill and living at a convent. She comes back, “Virginia walked in it, leaning on her mother's arm and treading the dead vine leaves.” (Chapter III) notice the word dead vine leaves, it foreshadows Virginia’s death. As Virginia walks towards death the same way, she treads through the dead leaves.
It is felicities nephew who dies, but when Madame Aubin compares Virginia to Victor it guessed that Virginia was next to die. The description of Victors death, it can be representing how somebody else is dying, the words “Here goes another one!” are rather insulting or diminishing human life. “He died almost instantly, and the chief surgeon had said: "Here goes another one!"(Chapter III)
So far the story is, enjoyable I like the way I can relate it to my history class, when they speak of American Revolution. After these mentions, I can imagine the way they lived easily, for what I know of the time. I liked the style of how is unpredictable and I had to read several times to understand the exact meaning of the words.

Good Girl Gone Bad

The Crying Of Lot 49 is probably the weirdest and most random book I have ever read. I understand some of the satire, which makes it enjoyable sometimes but is very hard to read. Thomas Pynchon´s style is awkward and beyond description, like my mom would say special or different, the use of commas, instead of periods and the story itself is just random. I think this story is one where things just happen and I believe this is not the common cliché story a bit innovating I think.
Odepia so far is a woman that represents the stereotype of the wild persons in the 60´s. I say it because it reminds me allot of my grandmother, a revolutionary who left her kids and husband and went and discovered the world ending up in theater and modeling. Not that Odepia is wild but, she is probably a woman who has the looks judging on the five or six boyfriends she has: Mucho, Pierce, Metzger and Roseman. All of these men are satirical especially Metzger a lawyer who was an actor in his youth. How can careers like those possibly interfere, they are extremities arts and law, not that a job defines our personality because this Metzger guy is somebody outgoing and daring. “That cuts down the probability, he told her, smug. She squinted at him through her glass. Then give me the odds. Odds would give it away.” Is it me or does that look like flirting , he knows she is married she is on a dead boyfriend business and she still has the nerve to flirt with her lawyer mentioning that she ends up sleeping with him. As much as I hate to say it this women is messed up. She has some kind of problem no wonder she thinks she is being persecuted she is crazy, and messed up these are the people end up at an asylum. She is like one of those good girls gone bad, "she wondred when then if this were really happening in the same way as, say her first time in bed with Pierce, the dead man." (pg23) we know from the start that her first boyfriend is Pierce and after Pierce came Mucho, so i wonder if Odepia´s feeling is regret. Regret on missing out on things so my reasoning or her excuse of sleeping around allot is her not having the wild life most people have in college and i think she is taking advantege that some people consider her as attractive and living the moment. Perhaps odepia is not crazy but she is in lament and sorrow. But the girl is still messed up, persecution really? she should go see a shrink.
So far the book is not boring like others I have read I still want to read and find out how it ends… yet is not a book I would read for fun, but is acceptable for class. I still see no point whatsoever on the story and I guess the reason we are reading this is to see the different styles like Mr. Thomas Pynchon´s writing and his story of persecution. Although I must say this is way better than science… I have enough of it in class.

KLIM Or KCUF, MILK Or FUCK

The story begins with a letter, a will that names our character Oedipa executor of a lot that belonged to her ex-boyfriend. It amazed me how drama evolved from a single way of communication, at first it did not understand it was a letter but as soon as I re-read it I focused on it. I kept reading and I found several mentions of different communication methods, such as the “greenish dead eye of the TV tube.”(pg1), book reviews, and most importantly oedipal husbands work pace a radio station. I have minor dyslexia and as I read the name of the radio station KCUF, I read it backwards and it said FUCK, just like KlIM backwars is MIlK it had to be on purpose. So I Googled it, and to my surprise, it was no mistake that the radio station name was that. I tried reading the explanation to the name of the station, but it was too far on the book. As I read the Google information, I got more interested in the text and concluded that the story revolves around communication. Notice also that some telephone conversations happen. In addition, the story besides revolving around the letter, it is as well revolving around on past conversations Oedipa had with Pierce his ex-boyfriend. Something I might also guess is that when they mention Oedipa´s husband worked at a car-lot, which made me remember the title so I think that this story has to do with the car-lot, because the writer described to extension Mucho´s fear of cars and the place.

Lady MacBeth Show Dawkins That She Is All About Business

"Are there any reasons for supposing our own species to be unique?"(pg189). Macbeth in regards to the question would answer that our species is supreme, because of the right to choose as he did, on killing his best friend Banquo. As for Dawkins, explanation would have to do with the fact that we have a culture. "Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be what thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' th' milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false and yet wouldst wrongly win." (act 1 sc5). As I write this, Microsoft word is trying to correct me, it does not understand that Shakespeare is not wrong, but what can I do? Languages evolve so says Dawkins, is a part of culture. Well I am glad that Macbeth's culture did not go to me, because I would not like to live in a world full of killers like MacBeth who betray their friends for his own good. But then again is just as Dawkins explains we are selfish, our genes are selfish, MacBeth wants survival of his genetic information by becoming king and maybe have little Macbeths running around.

If Dawkins were to have a conversation with Lady MacBeth or so as a lesson…

So Lady Macbeth how would you explain culture?

"Look like th' innocent flower, but be the serpent under't. He that's coming must be provided for; and you shall put this night great business into my dispatch, which shall to all our nights and days to come give solely sovereign sway and masterdom."(act1 scn6)

"These ideas are plausible as far as they go, but I find that they do not begin to square up the formidable challenge of explaining culture, cultural evolution, and the immense differences between human cultures around the world, of the Ik of Uganda, as described by Colin Turnbull, to the gentle altruism of Margaret Mead's Arapesh. I think we should start again and go right back to first principals." (pg191)

What are memes?

Just when, the witches predict to MacBeth he is going to be king, and we do so the idea is passed on such as, "ideas catch-phrases, clothes, fashions… propagate themselves in the meme the pool by leaping from brain to brain." (pg192) or when I said to MacBeth to kill Duncan "when in swinish sleep their drenched natures lies as in a death what cannot you and I perform upon th' unguarded Duncan?"(Act one scn7)

Yes very well.. You are getting the concept of selfish.. Now if I were to propose a game, Prisoner's dilemma that goes on like this: we are two people sitting backwards from each other a banker or judge on the middle we can either defect or cooperate. Such as this chart:

You are blue I am green…

Which of the strategies I taught you before today would you choose?

			Cooperate	Defect
	cooperate		We, both win.. but a small amount	I win you lose points
	Defect		you win I lose points	Nothing happens

 

Remorseful, you hurt me I will hurt you back have you forgotten that I want was best for me, I want to become queen! I defect and not cooperate for my own good… like I said before "business into my dispatch, which shall to all our nights and days to come give solely sovereign sway and masterdom."(act1 scn6)

Ok great! You are a proof for my human selfishness; however, I might say that you would behave altruistic if it were your husband, or someone you cared for.

I think MacBeth and Lady MacBeth act just as Dawkins would explain she wants what is best for her and cares for her. She is surviving among nobles to become queen. There is a relationship between the Selfish Gene and MacBeth, one is the example of the other.